A study which was published in the journal JAMA
Internal Medicine suggests that physicians
working in hospitals (known as “hospitalists”) spending a lot of money on
expensive tests should rein these in.It
found that U.S. Medicare patients whose doctors spent more on tests, scans and
consultations were as likely to die within a month of leaving the hospitals as
patients which had fewer tests.Patients
of high-spending doctors were also as likely to return to the hospital within a
month, researchers found.The study
showed a wide variance in spending amongst hospitalists who worked in the same
hospital.